Artist's studio may move to San Antonio museum

MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press

Published 6:30 am, Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Photo: Eric Gay, Associated Press

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Officials from the Witte Museum hope to get approval from San Antonio's historic review commission to move this weather-worn studio that once belonged to impressionist landscape painter Julian Onderdonk to the museum grounds. less

Officials from the Witte Museum hope to get approval from San Antonio's historic review commission to move this weather-worn studio that once belonged to impressionist landscape painter Julian Onderdonk to the ... more

Photo: Eric Gay, Associated Press

Artist's studio may move to San Antonio museum

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SAN ANTONIO — The weather-worn blue shed that sits behind a historical house here hasn't been used in decades, but nearly a century ago, it served as the studio for one of Texas' best regarded artists.

Some of its stained-glass panes are now broken and floorboards rotted, but officials from the Witte Museum hope to get the San Antonio historical review commission's approval Wednesday to move the studio once belonging to impressionist landscape painter Julian Onderdonk.

An early 20th century painter whose work included iconic images of the Alamo, bluebonnet fields and other south Texas scenes, Onderdonk would often take photos or make sketches as studies of the region's landscape and then return to oil paint in the studio that sat behind his family home.

Two of his paintings, one of people eating in front of the Alamo and one of flowering prickly pear cactuses, are at the White House on loan from the Witte. Onderdonk died in 1922.

If the plan to move the studio, which is currently in a historic neighborhood, gets approved, it will be placed on a flatbed truck and moved to the Witte's grounds, where it will be restored and open for viewing, said Marise McDermott, the Witte's president and chief executive.

"What's really wonderful about it is the inside," she said, noting that the studio still has slots where canvasses and paints were held. "You walk in and you say, 'This is an artist's studio.'"

The San Antonio museum, which prides itself for its collection of Texas art, owns a number of Onderdonk's paintings, photos and studies.

He came from a family of artists who included his father, Robert, and his sister, Eleanor, who served as the Witte's curator for three decades. Though Julian Onderdonk is the best regarded artist of the clan, all of them used the studio, which sat behind the 125-year-old family house.

"It would be hard to ignore them and still talk about Texas art," said Amy Fulkerson, the Witte's collections manager.

The studio was donated by a descendent of the family, and the house recently sold.

If the Witte is successful in getting a permit to move the studio, it wouldn't be the first American museum to have the complete studio of an artist moved onto its site. The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., moved the studio belonging to the Americana painter to the museum; the Rockwell studio contains the artist's material, collection and personal library.

The Witte cannot, however, move the Onderdonk studio without city approval, and the historic district that encompasses the neighborhood has opposed the relocation, saying it doesn't want to encourage the removal of structures from the Monte Vista neighborhood, the largest residential historic district in the country.

"Our concern is that moving a structure in a National Register historic district is tantamount to demolishing it because it's no longer there," said Tim Henson, the president of the Monte Vista Historical Association, which covers 100 square blocks just north of downtown San Antonio.

He concedes, however, that the association can do little but voice its objection.

Ann McGlone, the city historical preservation officer, had similar concerns but now supports the plan to move the studio to the museum.

"I want to be able to save that building for a long time. Part of saving that building is saving what's the inside," she said. "It will be much more accessible to the public" if moved to the museum.

She also said moving the structure will not automatically make it ineligible as a designated historical site.

"Long-term, it's going to be better protected at the Witte than it is in someone's backyard," McGlone said.